Priory

A religious house presided over by a prior or prioress; sometimes an offshoot of, an subordinate to, an abbey, and called also cell, and obedience. See Cell.

Of such houses there were two sorts: one where the prior was chosen by the inmates, and governed as independently as an abbot in an abbey; the other where the priory was subordinate to an abbey, and the prior was placed or displaced at the will of the abbot. Alien priory, a small religious house dependent on a largemonastery in some other country.